Good quote

I just read something by John Taylor Gatto, one of my favorite authors. Here it is:

“Learn to forgive and you enter an arena of spectacular affirmation. Begin by forgiving yourself, then forgive your family. You will have established a foundation for self-respect and categorical love by doing that–the kind that isn’t given or removed by the logic of performance, but given freely, without conditions. If you affirm forgiveness you have the secret of eternal renewal so clearly described in the Christian Gospels. When you love people who hurt you, the effect is transcendental. You swell up with the power of being fully human and truly free….

To be real you need to celebrate your own history, humble and tormented as it might be, and the history of your own parents and grandparents, however that history be marked by scars and mistakes. It is the only history you will ever have; reject it and you reject yourself. All the rest is the sickness of fantasy. Cherish what is yours; protect it; defend it; never accept the false evaluations of outsiders in regard to it. Whether your family is the best or the worst doesn’t matter very much, and your case will be hopeless as long as you think it does.”